Domus Crystalli · Scene IV · Borrowed Light
Dusk. Nell, her heart quiet, comes over still water toward the city on its rise: the glass dome lit from within, crystal towers growing out of old stone. A turquoise door opens on the pillar room, a forest of striped arches carved with old writing, and cracked. People stand among the columns and listen to her, swaying all together. As she sings, the cracks close, the marble brightens, and she rises under the dome into the purple sky, past the shining towers, until only their tips stand above a sea of cloud. "We are particles. We are light." Her light leaves her, and the crowd's, in streams toward two far points she does not see. Then the hum, a tape decaying, and through it, in pieces, her own name. That is not the city's voice.